Seeds of Brexit Planted in Iceland

• Across Europe, people want nations to regain sovereignty from globalist masters.

By Natalia Castro and Robert Romano —

The European Union (EU) thrives on the economic and cultural legitimacy its members reinforce, but since 2008 the seeds of rebellion have beensown and the “Brexit” was just the tipping point.

Following the economic turmoil of 2008 Icelandwas the first country to make an extremely unpopular decision in allowing the largest banksin the country to fail. Rather than allowing banks to be considered “too big to fail,” Iceland considered its banks “too big to save.” Iceland told the banks to pound sand, saved itself from continued economic devastation, and delivereddemocratic accountability to its people. Later, in 2013, Iceland withdrew its application to be amember of the European Union.

On June 25, Iceland elected a new president, who ran on a Euroskeptic, anti-corruption campaign. Guðni Thorlacius Jóhannesson, ahistorian, had never held elected office before. He won following the resignation of Iceland Prime Minister Sigmundur David Gunnlaugsson,after Gunnlaugsson’s reference in “the Panama Papers” brought the entire government down.

But it was the fateful decision to allow thebanks to fail that spurred a movement across mainland Europe for democratic legitimacywhen economic legitimacy was lost—particularly when citizens of EU member states saw the harsh economic restriction of theorganization and also the failures of the euro currency as unnecessary.

An article on May 19, 2011 from European news and debate website “VoxEurop,” entitled “Spain’s Icelandic revolt,” describes how young Spaniardstook to the streets with the organization Democracia Real Ya (Real Democracy Now) and chanted “when we grow up, we want to be Icelanders!”It was a message that would resonate in Italy, in Greece, and in France, reigniting thequestion of what was true sovereignty in modern Europe.

Did Iceland light the fuse for the dissolution of Europe as a political and economic entity?

The United Kingdom’s decision to leave theEU was not the first under consideration, either. Tales of a Grexit, or Greek exit from the Eurozone,were prominent as the sovereign debt crisis reached its pinnacle. Given the inability to let creditors fail—leaving no relief for a pile ofsovereign debt that could not be repaid—suddenly the common currency that once banded the EU began to threaten its dismantling.

However, it required much more than just economic uncertainty to cause UK citizens to move toward separating themselves from theEU. It was also an overwhelming sense of political intrusion that paralyzed the government and disconnected the people.

New York Times reporter Amanda Taubwrites in her June article: “It is clear from polling data and interviews with voters thatthose who voted for ‘Brexit’ had been well warned about the economic risks. They just cared more about something else: immigration.”

British citizens felt too much immigrationwas bad for the economy and social makeup. The cause of their immigration woes was constraintsplaced on the nation by the EU—an unelected, undemocratic board imposing regulations on the country’s immigration policy.

In Brexit, the existential question became, were the people of the UK European or were they British? The answer delivered by more than 17 million Britons was decidedly the latter.

The UK is not alone in divisions arising on the immigration and economic globalization question. Factions within the EU over immigrationpolicy have been developing rapidly amid growing concerns of the mass migration of refugees from the wars in Syria and Iraq. Back in March,online newspaper “EU Observer” described meetings led by Austria among western Balkanstates ahead of the EU interior ministers meeting in Brussels. The states met to plan their ownstrategies to deal with immigration, directly challenging the control of the EU. These Balkan states have consistently expressed the isolationthey have experienced from any involvement in EU immigration policy, while Germany monopolized discussion.

Expressing frustration with EU control over immigration, before his resignation, Austrian Chancellor Werner Faymann even noted, “Austria is not the waiting room for Germany,” to the EU Council President Donald Tusk. He furtherexpressed his deep discontent with the minimization of his country’s needs. Faymann was pressing for stronger border controls.

But it was not enough to stop momentum onthe immigration issue as the migrant crisis worsens. The Freedom Party’s Norbert Hofer, runningon a platform against open borders, just narrowly lost a bid to be Austria’s new presidentagainst that country’s Social Democratic Party. Undeterred, the Freedom Party is now calling for an Austrian exit from the EU.

Now, as reported by The Local, a prominentdomestic news source in Austria, Hofer is calling for an EU referendum that must take place within a year if no significant reforms are made.

“If the union develops incorrectly, then that is the moment for me where one needs to say, now we have to ask the Austrians as well,” he said in an interview.

In other words, Brexit could just be the beginning. It is no surprise the UK has been at the tip of the spear on this new liberation movement. As noted by The Wall Street Journal’s Greg Ip, the UK’s history has never been one of politicalunion with Europe, but rather strong democracy and sovereignty. The EU does not represent democracy, but a restriction from self-government.Immigration policy has been the latest example of the EU’s unforgiving control.

But look further back to Iceland’s actionseight years ago to declare independence from international banks—and the real movement, under the radar, it sparked.

Once one country sets the example of autonomy, it’s hard for others to ignore the freedom. It is that Icelandic sentiment that has permeatedpolitical parties on the right and the left in Europe—UKIP in the UK, Syriza in Greece, Five Star in Italy, National Front in France.

Maybe we are all Icelanders now.

Natalia Castro is a contributing editor at Americans for Limited Government. Robert Romano is the senior editor of Americans for Limited Government.